Well, the list is just a list. But in addition to several odd inclusions (what, apart from being famous, are Franco Corelli and José Carreras doing here?), Spyres’ also has some puzzling omissions. He correctly assigns high importance to Andrea Nozzari, creator of a number of the borderline Rossini tenor roles, but leaves out Domenico Donzelli, who, apart from creating one Rossini role and succeeding to some of Nozzari’s, was the first Pollione and a crucial link to the modern full-voiced tenors. Renato Zanelli (baritone to dramatic tenor convert) is in, but his brother Carlo Morelli (from tenor to baritone, and then a teacher) out. For that matter, Gilbert-Louis Duprez doesn’t make the cut, notwithstanding the fact that his route to the ut de poitrine was achieved in part by stabilizing the laryngeal position, and thereby accommodating the longer wavelengths of his voix sombre. But perhaps the most surprising excludee, because so directly relevant, is Hermann Jadlowker. A cantorially trained Latvian, Jadlowker is widely remembered for two things: he created the role of Bacchus (original version), and left two recordings that are especially noted among his many. One is of “Ecco ridente in cielo,” from Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and the other is none other than Idomeneo’s “Fuor del mar,” and the reason they are noted is because they offer examples of the unusual combination a strong, almost heroic, tenor voice with command of florid technique in passagework throughout the range and of the ornamental graces, including a vigorous trill. Here, in short, is an exemplar for the tenor-with-baritone chops sort of baritenor, and clearly not one whose technique was founded on heavy overlay from the top down. Another, cautionary, point of interest with Jadlowker is that following an illustrious but relatively brief career as a tenor,^(I) he gave up the struggle with the high range (a struggle we can hear on some of his other recordings) and sang for a time as a baritone, eventually returning to his cantorial origins, wherein strong but flexible upper-midrange cantillation was traditionally cultivated.

And here, I think, is the place to say that Spyres acquitted himself well as Idomeneo. In the part’s high-baritone range his voice had sufficient presence and warmth of timbre. His intonation was excellent and the line well delineated. The agility and rhythmic precision shown in “Fuor del mar” were extraordinary, especially for a male voice singing mostly on or below the passaggio pitches. He also had personal presence and, as people used to say, comported himself well, which is all that can reasonably be asked in this role and production. I did find myself wondering, as the voice bulked up a bit on the passaggio notes in more sustained phrases, how he would fare ascending into “real tenor” territory from there, but that did not come into play in this writing. At least at the performance I attended, there was one, let’s call it “injudicious,” moment. Having dispatched “Fuor del mar” so efficiently, and finding himself confined to baritone limits for the whole evening, he elected at aria’s end to Skipover the normal tenor upper range and toss in a couple of passing altissimi. They made a sound similar to that of those party favors that shoot out a long paper tongue when you blow on them, with a noise somewhere between a tinhorn razz, a rasp, and a squeal. Exit, to mighty roars of approbation.